Rod y Gab

It was one week ago today that me, Stu and a couple of friends went to see Rodrigo and Gabriela. I'm such a lazy slug it's taken me a whole week to post about it. Rod y Gab are Dublin-based Mexicans (like so many new acts these days) who play guitar duets which sounds pants but they are BRILLIANT. Gab is really sweet with a lovely accent and it's really funny to hear her talk about their heavy metal roots (and every time she said 'heavy metal' she growled and made the international symbol for 'rock', the one with your forefinger and your little finger). They only started messing about like this as a way to get hotels and bars to let them play in them.





Unfortunately the venue was ridiculous for them - it's a huge club with loads of balconies so no-one could really see them playing. There were big screens but whoever was controlling them only turned them on for a few songs. Annoying.

NOT as annoying as the young hooligans who perched, literally perched on a tiny shelf meant for resting your drink, behind us. It was quite a quiet night really so you could hear them play and these idiots were shouting across to each other saying genius things like 'I can see an arm', 'I can see a leg but some dickheads head is in the way' the dickhead in question being a middle-aged lady. When they started pulling ceiling tiles down so they could hang from the supports one of our number went and got a bouncer at which point Stu, who had been quietly seething, yelled 'what's your f**king problem?'. They just looked startled. Then the bouncer came up and asked who had taken the ceiling panels down 'it weren't us mate', to which Stu interjected with 'yes it was I saw them it was these f**king goons'. So mild mannered, never gets angry, but mess with him at a gig and you'll incur the wrath. I even got to say 'leave it Stu it's not worth it' which is what all girlfriends have to say in these situations, it's the law. They left, we had a good night. Polished off with fish and chips in the pouring rain.

I can't blog every day AND come up with bloody titles

Woohoo I finished the scarf!!! It was a good knitting session with only one attendee abstaining from the knitting which is rare. We had cookies and popcorn and tea. Four neuroscientists sat in my lounge, which was festooned with balls of wool, drinking tea and chatting about how we wish we'd done maths PhDs. We ROCK.

So yes, Stu has a scarf. As I said to Barb, it's pretty short but it'll go round his neck and therefore fits the criteria for a scarf. He's in Paris at the moment but maybe he'll model it on his return. I started a pepto-bismol pink scarf. With the small amount of knitting that got done in between the jibbering and eating it should be done in about 6 months.

Today was an unusually pleasant day actually. Primarily because I got YET ANOTHER parcel from Canada! This time from Mel (thanks Mel) beautifully packaged with a lovely card. My mail has never been so exotic. It's almost worth leaving it down on the letter shelf in the lobby a bit longer, just so everyone else in the building knows what exciting deliveries I get. In your face you losers with your boring bills.

And I went for coffee with my friend Dr H. We had a big chat about psychic powers and mediums and such-like. She is 'a believer' (her words), I am not. She is a molecular biologist and I would never have pegged her for 'a believer' but then I don't know why I should think that really. Clearly 'believers' don't have two heads or wear signs round their necks or anything. This isn't to say I don't have a fairly open mind about this sort of thing but I need evidence. And I'm surprised that, as a scientist, she is so prepared to accept a supernatural explanation. I'd be interested in comments on this - just wondering what general opinions are/personal experiences etc.

Also 10 points for me on trying to blog every day. Two days in a row. Well done me.

Busy Bloody Bee

Sigh. When I started this whole blog thing I wanted to write something every day, diary stylee. But now I'm entering the last few months of my PhD I'm the busiest effing bee in town. My life is just manic at the moment (except for yesterday when I stayed in my PJs until 1pm). On Wednesday I went to a concert, then my little mum came for the weekend. I just haven't found the time to write about ANY of this yet. But I will.

Tonight sees the recommencement of knitting club, a.k.a. 'stitch and bitch', a.k.a. 'not-knitting club' if you just want to come over and eat some food and chat and drink and not knit. I won't have a word said against it. It makes me extremely cool. So says I. Around this time last year I started knitting a scarf for Stu. Tonight I have big plans to finish it off. Quick worker me.

Game Over

Well that's that then. 3 weeks after spending £70 on getting my bike fixed when it was cruelly plundered by thieving shitheads it has been stolen in its entirety. They cut straight through the lock. It didn't even have the saddle with it. I'm not getting another one - I can take a hint. Plus it was becoming apparent to me just how dangerous cycling round Bristol really is. Students walk out in front of you, people open their car doors without looking, people pull out of side roads without looking, people pull into side roads across the front of you having just overtaken you to do so, so they know full well you're there. Perhaps a blessing in disguise. I guess I'm back to walking. I got legs, I know how to use 'em.

John Martyn

For Allison, who felt she was lacking in music from the 70s - an introduction to John Martyn

Bless The Weather


Stormbringer


Solid Air


My Baby Girl


'Bless the Weather' is from the album of the same name which was chosen by Q magazine as one of twelve essential folk albums of all time in 1999. Bless is used here in the old fashioned sense of the word, not as in 'aw bless the weather, how cute'.

Stormbringer is the title track from the 1970 album John Martyn released with his then-wife Beverley. It was supposed to be her solo album but got a bit taken over by John as he ended up writing 7 of the 10 songs and released under both names. I'm sure she was thrilled.

Solid Air, the title track from his 1973 album, was dedicated to Nick Drake, Martyn's friend and label-mate, who was suffering from depression at the time and died of an overdose of antidepressants 18 months after the album was released.

My Baby Girl is from the 1974 album Sunday's Child.

Thank You Barb!

UR IN MY LETTR BOX, MAKIN ME SMILE!!

When you feel like a bag of shite, what could be better than finding a small brown packet from Canada in your letter box! I got a CD from lovely Barb! Thanks so much Barb, the absolute highlight of my otherwise dreary day.

Lemsip - I LOVE You

I'm dying(ish) of a throat infection. My tongue looks like one of these...



I love the internet, I didn't think for a second I'd actually find a picture of a white strawberry with red spots. I've got some drugs, some good old-fashioned penicillin, so it's all good. Feel better already today actually so I fancy I might faff about with my template a bit more. Watch this space...

***EDIT*** I have faffed with the template from under my duvet and it all looks much tidier thanks to the very elegant template that River designed. Thank you River!!!

***Another edit*** River, or Dogga, or anyone else who knows about these things, I've broken the bit that makes links a different colour - there is a link to River's blog above but it looks the same as the rest of the text :( How do I fix it?

***Me again*** River had already posted very clear and helpful instructions on this subject which I managed to miss completely. I shall fix it anon.

For your inflight entertainment...

All the Borat hoopla going on over at Will's site reminded me I forgot to provide full and comprehensive reviews of the films I saw on the plane over to Greece...

The Devil Wears Prada: Utter drivel



The Lake House: Ridiculous. But I loved it. It made me cry into my plastic mug of wine, even though I was sat next to a total stranger.

Absolute Sheer Bloody Genius

Backside firework prank backfires

"A man suffered internal burns when he tried to launch a rocket from his bottom on Bonfire Night.
Paramedics found the 22-year-old bleeding, with a Black Cat Thunderbolt Rocket lodged inside him, when they attended the scene in Sunderland"

Click on the headline to read the full story.

Blahblahblahblahblahology

The last few days I've been on a psychoneuroimmunology course. I know it sounds totally made up but it's real. It's basically a fancy way of saying 'mind and body', it was all to do with the effect of stress and emotions on progression of disease and all that jazz. A lot of it was very convincing, especially some of the HIV stuff. There was also some stuff about the potential biological mechanisms of the placebo effect which was really interesting.

I went along because this sort of stuff is potentially the kind of area I might want to get into once I've got my stinking PhD out the way. Maybe. So I forced myself to go to the dinner on the Monday night, even though I didn't know another soul and was pretty sure they were all bestie mates. Turns out they weren't all bestie mates and I ended up sat opposite the woman I wanted to be sat opposite. The dinner was at a really good little bistro type thing very near me...



The food was glorious and there was plenty of wine. I ate mackerel salad with chilli dressing, then lamb casserole with the tastiest potatoes I've ever had. And I drank a lot. So by the time they came round with the HUGE slab of chocolate mocha tart, my belly was swollen with a substantial food baby.

And yet somehow there was room for tart. I don't know what's wrong with me - this was the day after the ridiculously large Sunday lunch. I am literally trying to eat myself to death. Way to make a good impression on potential future employers.

In another food-related incident I pinched the fleshy bit of my little finger in the handle of some salad tongs during lunch yesterday - so hard it's come up in a nasty little blood blister thing - while talking to a nice young man from London. I wanted to scream and yell "owwwwwwww" in his face, but I held it together and continued to nod with great interest at what he was saying. I'm just so slick with my networking.

Easy like one of them Sunday mornings...

As Sundays go yesterday was pretty bloody nice. Slobbed about in bed until finally dragging myself up around 10am, read the paper, then went out for a carvery for lunch. We went to a pub in the village where ma and pa live. It was glorious. The plates were HUGE, the beef was perfect. I nearly killed myself by eating too much but what a way to go. THEN I had a Belgian white chocolate cheesecake. God it was good.

Then on the drive back to Bristol we saw this spectacular sunset so Stu took some beeoootiful pics....







Oh yeah and it was Guy Fawke's night too so we had a light show all the way up the M5, fireworks going off all over the place. Not bad for a usually fairly dull and awful drive along one of the most boring roads in the country.

Once home I curled up in front of CSI with a hot chocolate. Divine.

Chuck Elliot

Chuck Elliot has an exhibition coming up in Bristol. Never heard of the bloke, but I read about him in 'The Bristol Magazine' and he's got a little beard and makes these beautiful things...





The magazine said "Chuck Elliott’s practice is concerned with the investigation of colour, movement and light. Entirely computer generated, free form shapes are cropped, re-coloured and enhanced as if editing in a camera view...These metallic Lambda prints afford a far higher dynamic range of colour than has previously been available to the artist through more traditional printing techniques".

I've no idea what that means but I like it. Ain't they pretty?

You're Beautiful

Well I'm at little mum's, spending the weekend with the old goat and her dicky ticker, and not doing very much at all. Which is blissful.

Have been meaning to post about this for a few days now. Everyone's favourite posh whinging warbler has been in the news TWICE this past week. Yes, James Blunt has finished VERY highly in a poll asking what people in the UK find most annoying. This story explains that...

"Singer James Blunt is more irritating than traffic wardens, noisy neighbours and estate agents, according to a poll ranking the UK's most annoying things"

People either love young James (I'm not sure which people but there must be some) or hate him. Much like Marmite. And so you can imagine my joy when I saw that James' creepy grinning face had been captured in marmart...



For the original, truly wonderful mamart site go here. I'm not a fan of squeezy marmite but some of the stuff here is quite special!

On the road again

Got my bike fixed, which set me back £67 for new wheel, new tyre, some gear things, and some mudguards. So the countdown to bits being stolen begins.

I've been crazy busy this week. I was in Weymouth at the beginning of the week as little old mum had radioablation on her heart for atrial fibrillation so me and Gemma went along to hold her hand and such like. They passed a probe up through a vein in the top of her leg, all the way up to her heart, then gave it a good zapping. Job done.



Consequently I feel like I've been playing catch-up all bloody week. And I had to go and pick Stu up from the airport on Tuesday night - he was coming back from Amsterdam having flown out on Sunday. When he got to the airport on Sunday the flight had been cancelled and he had a 9 hour wait!!!!! Sounds like he had a very good time though, not sure it's possible to go to Amsterdam and not have a good time.

Then Gemma came up to Bristol for a few days and we went to see a Bob Dylan tribute band 'Highway 61 Revisited' who, as I understand it, have a drummer who used to play with the man himself. Or something like that. He's a session musician for MTV unplugged too. And very good he was too. I have just been the busiest Kees in town.